HELENA — Ospreys are beginning to return home and Montana Wild is happy these top aquatic food chain predators are back as they are vital to understanding the Treasure State’s environmental health.

Corie Bowditch, Montana Wild's program manager, says, “Osprey are kind of a sign of spring and they are fun to see return and so the public seems to be really inspired to keep an eye out for osprey.”

Now is the time to keep your eye out as osprey journey back to Montana from destinations as far south as Texas, Florida and even Central and South America.

“Osprey, their diet is 99 percent fish, so they do a lot of fishing here at Spring Meadow Lake and lakes and rivers across Montana, but obviously that’s a little hard to do in the middle of the winter when it is all iced over,” Bowditch says.

So they can beat the cold, ospreys leave Montana in September and return back in late March and early April to build a nest and start a family.

Bowditch says, “Where osprey choose to nest can definitely tell us a little about how the fish population is doing in that area.”

One of the ospreys that returns to Helena is banded and Montana Wild was able to track that osprey to being a chick in an area with high toxin levels in the water.

Osprey nests are oftentimes found in tall trees, power poles, and have recently become reliant on man-made osprey platforms to raise their babies.

“There just is not quite the habitat there once was for them to successfully nest and then they are having such high breed success on these structures, you know why change it up?" Bowditch says.

The other ways humans are helping bridge the environmental gaps for these birds is cleaning up line and twine that could choke or tangle them in their nests.

If you would like to help osprey and other Montana birds, Montana Wild will have a clean-up day around Spring Meadow Lake next Friday.